One of the projects I've been cultivating this year is my self-sowing garden. Part of the motivation for this garden is due to its location. Nearby is a gas utility line and I didn't want to plant anything here that I would feel bad about removing should the need arise, but I still wanted plants that looked great. Nearly every plant here is a self-sowing annual although I had to sneak in a few easy to come by perennials! For today's Garden Blogger's Bloom Day please enjoy the photos of the self-sowing garden.

Here is a photo of the self-sowing garden from the arbor. In the forefront are red poppies that I started from seed early this spring.

Poppies have very interesting paper-like petals.

Here they are again from the other side of the garden.

You'll notice a blurry blue apparition in on the left hand side of the photo above. This is one of several larkspurs I planted. Hopefully they will continue to bloom and spread their seed around the garden. In the picture below is the same larkspur a little more in focus taken from the same location.

We can bask in the blue color spectrum a little longer with the 'Black and Blue' salvia. It's easy to see how it got its name with its nearly black stems and deep blue flowers.

The hummingbirds are said to like this salvia (I'm not sure there are any salvias they don't like) although I haven't seen one partake of this particular plant there is another plant nearby that is a sure fire hummingbird magnet.

This red flowering perennial penstemon is well loved by those little hummingbirds. Several times I've been outside in the early morning when a little bird comes zipping over take a sip of nectar.

Other Bloomers in the self-sowing garden are:

Monarda (bee balm)

Coreopsis 'Sunfire' (tickseed)

Rudbeckia

And my personal favorite photo in this post,

Cosmos

This garden is in severe need of a weeding which I would like to accomplish this week. Then I'll mulch around the base of plants that have already emerged and the self-sowing garden will be established! After the first year the plants should sow themselves and all I'll have to do is weed, and we all know that that's quite enough work to do!